The Drogs fans I talked to in person over there. Either way, he was pretty much first choice for you the last two seasons, and hasn’t looked great since joining us.
Well yeah, obviously. That’s why goal scoring records only tell half a story. At this level DJT was completely outclassed, Draper wasn’t.
Agreed but not sure of the relevance. I didn’t say Ireland doesn’t produce any decent players.
Well it’s based on what I’ve watched. So it’s not naive, just my opinion.
I’d fancy that’s absolute fallacy to be honest but hey ho. As for League One, absolutely nowhere near.
Yep. As I said, it’s not a knock, it’s enjoyable football to watch.
I’m a big fan of Irish football, and have defended it against some inane criticisms from ignorant posters on here long before the Drogheda/Trivela thing made them take a bit of interest. On what metric do you come to that conclusion? I watch football at all levels from level 7 non-league to Premier League in England. There’s some brilliant football to be watched, and some great days to be had doing it. The Premier League is in my experience, a consistently outstanding level of football, with some incredible atmospheres to experience. It’s also a ridiculously shifting sand unlike most top leagues. Luton were non-league 9 years ago, last season they were Prem, next year they could be easily third tier…and the list goes on. A visit to Brentford these days is even more joyeous than it was in the pomp of Griffin Park and “the Brentford 4”, the stadium is a marvel of utter beauty, the Brentford fans are superb, and the level of cavalier entertainment produced by their team reminds me of Walsall under Buckley in the mid-80’s. I could go on and on… from the Newcastle v Arsenal game where the latter’s Champions league hopes were dashed 3 seasons ago where the atmosphere was such that it felt like my ears had been plugged into national grid just walking round the town, to trips to atmospheric museum pieces like Fulham and Burnley, grounds that I’ve visited more times in tiers 3 and 4 over the years, including a midweek freezing 0-0 at the former where the “crowd” was under 2k and if a pin had dropped during proceedings it would have woke some of the poor miserable souls up.
I totally get that people don’t like the top flight in England because of the insane money, and quite a few other negatives, but to generalise that levels of excitement and atmosphere are lacking in comparison to other levels is ridiculous. I would also add that the worst levels of footballing snobbery I’ve ever experienced in 50+ years of watching have been consistently at the hands of “little hitlers” at non-league level, and for many years as a consequence of the incumbants of Walsall’s boardroom, a phenomena which thankfully seems to be slowly, like a stubborn turd, getting flushed out of existence and our psyche.
Re weir comments, some football supporters are completely deluded on how great they think players are.
I named some of those players as they are players who started in the league of Ireland but was like a duck to water when moving to premier league/ championship from the league.
I’ve said before on here that I think it’s next to impossible to accurately compare the Irish league to lower leagues in England unless we competently played each other - but I do think the standard over here is underrated. Brexit has been a great thing for us as players can’t go to England until 18 now so we’re seeing a much higher quality of younger players too (eg Man City are after buying first team player from st pats a few weeks ago).
Bar Derry making a mess of things, our clubs results in Europe haven’t been too bad this year too.
